


Frostbite

by butterflyslinky



Series: His Mighty Shield [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Relationship, M/M, Minor Violence, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2322254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflyslinky/pseuds/butterflyslinky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all going so well. So of course it has to snap at some point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frostbite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vinvy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinvy/gifts).



Your life has never been so perfect. You have a nice place to live, rent-free with every luxury. You have a great team, even if you bicker sometimes. You have an income that you earn doing the right thing, saving the world. You have food, you aren’t sick anymore, you don’t have to worry about your own life, which gives you time to help others.

And you have Bucky and he loves you. He’s still cracked, sure, but he’s no longer broken. Most of the time, he’s just Bucky, wonderful, imperfect Bucky who smells like coffee and cigarettes, who argues politics with Tony with an air of arrogance and intelligence, who jokes with Natasha in Russian just to piss everyone else off, who argues with Clint like a teenager. Who holds you tight and kisses you softly and cuddles you sweetly.

Things are going to well with everyone. It feels like you have a family for the first time in a long time, and you couldn’t ask for more.

It seems normal this morning. You and Bucky get up early. He makes his coffee and then you go for your morning run. It’s a nice day and the two of you take your time, running slower to enjoy the weather.

You return to the tower an hour later and go back to the communal kitchen for your full breakfast. Tony’s there when you come in, though whether he’s starting a new day or continuing the last one, you can’t be certain. He’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but that doesn’t mean anything since Tony will wear the same clothes for weeks on end if he knows no one else will see him.

“Morning, Tony,” you say as you sit down at the table and Bucky goes for a second cup of coffee.

“Hey,” Tony said in response as he closes the refrigerator. “Want some milk?”

You don’t know how or why, but the next thing you know is that Bucky has Tony pinned to the fridge, his metal fingers wrapped around Tony’s throat.

You leap to your feet immediately. “Bucky!” You rush over and try to break his grip to no avail. “Bucky, let go!”

He doesn’t seem to notice you, only tightens his grip. Tony is struggling and you know he’s going to pass out soon. “Jarvis, code white in the kitchen!” you call, still trying to separate them.

“It’s already been called, sir,” Jarvis says as Clint, Bruce, and Natasha rush in. Bruce takes one look at the situation before retreating, no doubt to prevent a Hulk freak-out. Clint and Natasha, however, immediately rush to help.

It takes all three of you to finally pry Bucky’s hand off, by which point Tony has passed out. Natasha catches him before he hits the floor and examines him quickly before declaring that he’ll probably live.

“Bucky?” you say softly. He’s still standing in the middle of the room, his eyes cloudy, but when you call his name his face clears into a mask of guilt and horror. He glances at you, then at Clint, then at Natasha and Tony before suddenly pushing past you and dashing out the door.

You follow, but he’s already left the building and by the time you reach the street, he’s nowhere to be seen.

Clint catches up with you. “Gone?”

You nod. “I’m sorry…he was doing so well…”

He shakes his head. “Technically my fault…certainly my problem.” He sighs. “Go back inside and take Tony to the lab. I’ll find Bucky.”

“He won’t be easy to find,” you say. “Not if he doesn’t want to be found.”

“I’ll look for him,” Clint insists. “If all else fails, though, I think he’ll come back.”

You nod and go back inside. Tony’s regained consciousness, so you help him to the lab where Bruce can take care of him. Then you go back to your room to wait.

Clint returns at nightfall. He hasn’t found Bucky after searching all his usual haunts. You sleep alone for the first time in months, cold without him wrapped around you.

In the morning, you wake early as usual, but there’s still no one beside you. You don’t smell coffee, so you know Bucky hasn’t come home yet.

You don’t run today. Oh, you get up, get dressed, go downstairs with every intention to go about your morning routine, but you find the door is locked and your keycard won’t open it.

“Jarvis, unlock the front door, please,” you call in a patiently frustrated voice.

“Unable to comply.”

“What? Why not?”

“Agent Barton has instructed that you are not to leave the tower until Sergeant Barnes has returned or been found.”

“Why?”

“Agent Barton feels that you are too emotionally compromised to join the search and fears that you will act in a manner that could endanger yourself or others.”

You sigh in frustrations. “So who’s going to find him?”

“Agent Romanov has been searching through the night and should return shortly. If she is unsuccessful, Agent Barton will resume the search. Mr. Stark has also begun a search using the signal from Sergeant Barnes’s mobile phone, though it is unlikely to yield positive results.”

“Right,” you mutter, and storm up to the lab.

Tony is sitting at his desk, watching intently as his computer tries to locate Bucky’s phone. There are bruises on his neck from Bucky’s fingers and a wave of guilt washes over you,, but when Tony looks up, there’s more concern than anger on his face.

“No word?” he asks.

“Nothing,” you answer. You pause. “Tony, I…”

He waves his hand. “Not your fault,” he says. “Probably triggered him somehow…and he’s not the type to just have a panic attack and pass out.”

“But…”

“I’m not mad,” he assures you. “It happens. Hell, Steve, how many times has he tried to strangle you in your sleep? And he loves you!”

You nod. “I just…he was doing so well. He was getting better.”

“Yes he was,” Tony agrees. “But recovery isn’t a straight path upwards. I should know…it’s going to go down sometimes.”

You sigh. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

“Just wait,” Tony says. “He loves you, Steve. He’ll come back for you.”

*

A week passes and Bucky doesn’t come. There’s no sign, no sighting, not so much as a whisper of where he’s gone. Clint and Natasha search in shifts, looking all over the city without any luck. You know they won’t find him. Bucky knows New York better than any other place on earth and if he doesn’t want to be found, he can easily disappear. It’s not even a matter of hiding. It would be so easy for him to put on civilian clothes and simply vanish among the eight million residents of the city.

Tony locates Bucky’s cell phone on the second day of the search, abandoned in a Starbucks a mile away from the tower. Clint retrieves it and asks if anyone knows who it belongs to or where they went, but no one had seen who left it and the barista claims that it wasn’t there when she closed shop the night before.

You beg Clint to let you join the search. You know him better than anyone and feel certain that you could find him if they’d let you. But Clint refuses, pointing out that Bucky can easily evade you and may convince you to call off the search. You can’t argue with him.

So you wait. You don’t sleep for days on end, waiting to hear the reports, but they’re always the same: Nothing. Finally, after days of no sleep, Natasha orders you to go to bed. You comply, but you don’t sleep much, worrying about him. He’s probably just hiding, too scared that he’s going to be locked up if he’s found again, but you can’t help but worry that he was recaptured by HYDRA, or killed by a street gang, or simply took his own life out of guilt. On the rare occasion you sleep, you wake up barely an hour later, covered in cold sweat with images of Bucky lying broken in a ditch.

You cry, wishing that Bucky would come home, but there’s no point. He’s gone, and you feel certain that this time, you won’t get him back.


End file.
